But I recently flew up to Pittsburgh to help my grandma move, so off I went to the Jewish Museum to check out the exhibit. It was pretty cool to see the final creation of all the breasts sewn together!

Here are photos of the exhibit

Next to the reef of breasts, there was a map showing where all the participants in the project are from. Most are from the US, but there were also breasts sent from Australia, Brazil, and the Philippines.

Can you find me? I’m the only one from Austin, TX and there’s a photo of me wearing my crocheted breast as a hat.
🙂

An explanation of the exhibit is below, but I’m not sure how easy it is to read it…so I’ll replicate it here:

When I learned that mothers are passing toxins to their newborns through breast milk, it hit me like a ton of bricks. How could we have let this most sacred rite be tainted with such disregard for the world’s resources?

Plastic, the most prevalent component of ocean debris, threatens life on earth because it persists so long in the water. Over time, plastic breaks down into tinier and tinier bits that actually absorb other toxic chemicals. Fish that eat plankton feed mistakenly on these particles. Toxins then leach into fish tissues as they work their way up the food chain. Scientists believe that some of the toxins commonly found in breast milk may have originated from this source.

It occurred to me that many women who like to crochet and/or who have environmental concerns might be interested in participating in an international, collaborative eco-art project to address this issue. The response was overwhelming! Three groups formed in Pittsburgh and from there it spread as far as Brazil, Australia, and the Philippines. Visit our blog (H20forall.blogspot.com) to find out more about the project.

A message from Wendy Osher, who organized the crocheted breast project:

Dear Out of Town SIW Crocheters,

Here is the email I sent out to local people. Tonight is the opening. Wish you all could be here. I have your photos posted with a world map indicating where everyone lives as well as all your names and locations on the collaborator list. I will send some photos of the installation soon. After 30 people hrs trying to install the piece on a genie lift, we had to reinvent the installation and float it just off the ground. We were not going to be able to complete it before the deadline when it was hanging from the 30′ ceiling. But it looks really great. Thank you all!

Maybe my most ambitious project to date, Something in the Water, a collaboration with women across the country and abroad who crocheted breast shapes from plastic bags, is on view for the first time Saturday evening. Please join us!

Don’t miss this opportunity to see how fifteen artists’ face water issues in their own ways in. Too Shallow For Diving/The 21st Century is Treading Water. This is my first experience with the wonders of a viral project on the internet.

Please join me!

Wendy

TOO SHALLOW FOR DIVING: THE 21ST CENTURY IS TREADING WATER

AMERICAN JEWISH MUSEUM OF THE JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF GREATER PITTSBURGH MAY 16 – JULY 28, 2011

Fellow plastic bag crocheter Wendy Osher is working on an interesting eco-art project that involves crocheting used plastic bags into breast shapes.
The project aims to highlight our dependency on plastic bags and their contribution to the toxins in our water (that is then passed on to infants through mothers’ breast milk). This project will be displayed in an art exhibition about water on May 2011 at the American Jewish Museum in Pittsburgh, PA.

In preparation for the exhibit, Wendy is collecting crocheted plastic bag breasts! All contributions must be received by April 1 so that she can join them all together into a floating reef. Everyone who contributes will be acknowledged for their collaboration and it just sounds like a really fun project to get involved with. I plan to send her a breast. Do you crochet or know someone who does? Why not make a breast too?

You can learn more about this project, how to get involved, and specific project guidelines at Wendy’s site: Something In the Water.

*Wendy recommends using H-J sized hooks, so that the shapes are tightly crocheted and take on more sculptural forms. And her main submission guideline is that the colors the nipple strongly contrast with the rest of the breast.

To get an idea of what a crocheted breast looks like, I found a few photos on her site: